


If I Must

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: (mild blood is such a weird tag), Aftermath of Torture, Anal Play, Anal Plug, Angst, Caretaking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Mutual Masturbation, Post-Rome, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Scars, Skin picking, Whump, never mind that's not the point, probably out of character, wolfe and santi make the worst patients this is canon, wolfe is not ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22788100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: "It was truly pathetic, to be this needy. Yes, all right, he had required Nic's assistance for everything when he had been ... weaker. That didn't mean that he should come to assume it. To crave it."Self-indulgent woobiefied Wolfe whump. And smut, kind of , in chapter 2. Read the tags.
Relationships: Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably grow chapters, all of the same kind of tone. Yes, I tend to woobify Wolfe in this kind of fic. No, I don't care. :) 
> 
> (What's a woobie? Check here for a great explanation: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Woobie)

Wolfe woke with blood under his fingernails, and streaked up his arms, and dotted onto the bedsheets. Even knowing almost instantly what it must be didn't stop an icy, shocked sensation lodging itself under his ribs, pulling his chest tight.

Nic didn't rouse as Wolfe carefully got out of bed. Good. 

Bad; he'd really torn this scar open. He splashed cold water on the raw, oozing flesh, which stung.

He had no sense of what his nightmare had been about tonight but it had clearly meant business. The inside of his head felt scraped bare and his every sense was straining as if to catch a sign of danger. He couldn't quite think of the next step. Wash the wound. Done. Bandage the wound? Yes, but where were the bandages?

They could be ... in the cupboard? In the box under the sink?

It was easier just to stare blankly into the sink and watch the bloody water swirl away down the plughole.

"Chris?" Nic's voice made him jump. He grabbed the sink and held on for balance. "Sorry, my love, I didn't mean to scare you." Nic came up to the sink and hissed. Presumably he'd seen Wolfe's arm.

"I tore a scar," Wolfe said, pointlessly. His stomach rolled with stress.

"I can see." Nic pressed up close behind him. "Are you all right? How long have you been in here for?"

I don't know. "Only a little while." He desperately wanted to lean back against Nic's bed-warm body, but if he did that, he didn't think he'd be able to move away again.

It was truly pathetic, to be this needy. Yes, all right, he had needed Nic's assistance for everything when he had been ... weaker. That didn't mean that he should come to assume it. To crave it.

"i couldn't find the bandages," he said, by way of an explanation. That sounded like he'd looked for them, rather than been so utterly, foolishly paralysed by even the concept of a second step to the process of looking after himself.

"No, I moved them the other day." Nic squeezed his shoulder and moved away to the cupboard.

"Right." Wolfe swallowed and tried to breathe more smoothly than his body wanted him to.

The water was still running over his arm. He should turn it off. That would be the sensible thing to do. The normal thing to do.

When he forced his free hand to straighten from its clenched grip on the side of the sink, it shook. When he tried to turn the faucet off, pain shot through his hand where he'd aggravated the damaged areas. He didn't cry out. He was still too on edge for that. Not reacting was ... safer.

"I can't turn the tap off," he admitted instead. His voice came out wonderfully calm and steady. That was good. That was excellent. 

"I'll get it." Nic fumbled sideways with one hand while his head was still in the cupboard, and swiped the faucet. It turned so humiliatingly easily. "Got them." Nic held the bandages out to him. "Do you want to do it?"

Wolfe stared at the roll of bandage. It seemed to loom, somehow, and his mind filled with deafening, meaningless chatter as he tried to mentally list the steps he needed to follow to bandage a simple arm wound. For fuck's sake. He knew this.

He shook his head. The world didn't quite settle after he stopped, creating a slow rocking sensation that didn't help his queasy stomach. "My hands aren't behaving themselves. You do it." His voice cracked a little on the last sentence out of effort not to add a, 'Please,' for fear that he might not stop at one.

"All right." Nic put the toilet seat down and looked at Wolfe expectantly. Wolfe eyed the distance warily. Just a few steps. He could do it. But he felt rooted to the floor like a statue, as if trying to move would send him toppling. Nic's eyes narrowed, just a fraction, and Wolfe's heart sank. "Do you need to lean on me?"

There it was. The concerned tone. It shouldn't feel this comforting. It should feel grating. Wolfe should want to take responsibility for himself. He was more than recovered enough now.

"No. I'm fine. Give me a second." He braced himself. This felt ridiculously similar to making risky leaps from his times in war-zones. Except this time he wasn't hurtling over a gap between two roofs in Belgrade, he was trying to take two fucking steps sideways, for fuck's sake, Christopher.

That memory surprised him. Belgrade. What a time for that to fall out of the fog.

See? He was improving.

Cheered, he let go of the sink. Instantly his skin crawled and his stomach flipped as his body informed him that clearly he was in grave danger. Stupid fucking thing.

By time he he tumbled gracelessly onto the toilet seat, he was panting and shaking all over. Fuck it. He'd done it.

"Belgrade," he informed a blurry Nic.

"Bel ... grade. Yes. Right." Nic took hold of his arm. "Let's get this wrapped up and then we can get back to bed."

Nic's hands were so warm on the chilled skin of his arm. His voice was so soothing. But if Wolfe gave into that promised comfort now he was genuinely concerned that he would slide limply off the toilet seat.

"I washed it," he said instead, which might be the most pointless thing he'd said so far. His voice wasn't so steady, now. He couldn't quite stop himself trembling. Leftover adrenaline. Stupid.

"Yes. Yes, you did. Thank you." Nic's hand cupped his cheek and stroked it.

Wolfe's eyelids fluttered shut immediately and it took bone-chilling effort to force them open again.

"Did you wake up badly, Chris? Did something startle you?"

"No." He stared into Nic's beautiful eyes. They looked almost green in this lighting. "I just. There was blood."

Nic nodded and smiled at him. "Nearly done with this."

Wolfe nodded back, and tried to focus his eyes on the neat bandage on his arm. He wriggled his fingers, just for the reassurance of watching them do as they were told. Brought his other hand over to poke at the texture of the bandage.

"Don't scratch." Nic picked up that hand and kissed it before putting it back on Wolfe's lap.

Wolfe let him, even though he hadn't been scratching. It was so tempting, just letting Nic do things for him.

So when Nic lifted him to his feet, he gritted his teeth and helped. That meant that Nic put an arm around his waist, rather than carrying him, which was

_~~(unacceptable)~~ _

a good sign of Nic trusting him.

"You weren't supposed to get up," he complained, as they left the bathroom step by unsteady step. "I was going to fix it."

"Sorry," Nic said, not sounding sorry at all, the bastard. "I woke up to an empty, bloodstained bed. Humour my concern." Nic stopped and readjusted his grip. "Anyway," he said, in a much softer voice. "It looks like you woke up a little wobbly. I'm glad I could help."

Wolfe leaned into Nic's arms, now that they had stopped walking. His head spun, dream-like and drifting and relaxed at last.

The absence of fear did this to him, these days. It was like his brain couldn't function properly without being afraid.

"I woke up fine," he mumbled into Nic's neck. "I just ... I'm sorry. I should be better."

"Pardon? Better? Better than what?" Nic rubbed his back. He laughed softly. "Only you would try to overachieve at recovery, too."

Oh, now that wouldn't stand. Wolfe blinked open bleary eyes that he didn't realise he'd closed and glared at Nic's chin. "You'd be just as bad."

"Mm. You might be right."

"I'm always right."

Nic kissed his cheek. "Let me carry you to bed, my love."

 _Oh, please_.

"If you must," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris, still recovering, has a surprise waiting for Santi when he gets home one evening. It doesn't go quite to plan, but they don't let that stop them. 
> 
> Smut + whump. (Smump? Whut?? Self-indulgent squidging together of the two things I love the most? Definitely the latter.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in like, an hour? An hour and a half? And have performed minimal editing. 
> 
> This includes formatting, because I lost my patience, though I will try to fix that later. Maybe in stages.

Santi wasn't too disappointed when he stepped through the front door to find the main room dark and unused. The slightly open door of the bedroom was reassuring, as that indicated Chris had at least left the room once that day.

"Evening," he called, as he turned on the glows and bent to untie his boots.

"You're late," Chris accused from beyond the bedroom door. Santi frowned to himself. There was an odd note in Chris' voice.

"Had a couple of newly -made lieutenants who thought their pips meant they could be unruly."

"You scared them straight, did you?" There was definitely some sort of suppressed emotion in Chris' voice. Santi just couldn't tell what it was.

He forced a chuckle. "I tried." Finally getting his boots off, he headed for the bedroom at a loud, carefully measured speed.

When he'd left this morning there had been two glows on, turned down comfortably low, and at some point Chris had altered that. The brighter light shone reflections onto Chris' face, pooling in the sweat on his cheeks and brow. Despite that, he was huddled under the same blankets he had been this morning.

Shit. Was he ill? He caught the slightest cold, these days. Or had he just done something too strenuous? Depending on his mood and state, that could be anything from getting to the bathroom to full-blown exercising.  
"Are you feeling unwell?" He hovered in the doorway. Chris got so irritated if he took action based on his assumptions.  
"No." Chris actually grinned. It was a shaky-edged thing, and Santi's heart somersaulted in an uncertain, half-painful way. "It's been a busy day."  
Santi could not, as hard as he tried, think of anything that Chris, who looked to have spend most of the day in bed, could have spent the day doing that Chris himself would classify as busy. Unless he'd finally, abruptly managed to reclassify activities as Santi and the Medicas had been urging him to do.  
Carefully, he moved closer to the bed. "What's got you working up a sweat, then?"  
Chris made no obvious move to share the blankets, so he didn't try to get into the bed.  
"You know that big titanium plug we bought a while ago?"  
A while ago? It felt like a lifetime ago that they had been in any state to go shopping for pleasure toys. Everything before the last hellish year felt distant, and if it was like that for Santi, how on earth did Chris even remember -  
"Yes, I remember that one," he said, uncertainly.  
"I can give it an excellent review." And then Chris wriggled, in a way that Santi hadn't seen in so long.  
Suddenly their typical roles these days were flipped, and Santi was the one struggling to find words and assemble them in his mind and make them come out of his mouth, because, what?  
Christopher might as well have declared he'd flown to the moon for all the sense that Santi could make out of that.  
He could imagine it, though, with startling clarity. Imagine exactly what that plug might look like tucked inside Chris. Arousal start to coil in his groin, and only as it did so did he finally recognise Christopher's own body language in that regard. It had been so long.  
But then his mind restarted from its stall. That was a huge plug, more of the size that he preferred than Chris'. He'd thought Chris was being ambitious when he'd bought it at the time, let alone after -  
Chris' gaze turned sour. "I can hear you worrying, you know. I do have some common sense remaining. I started much smaller and worked my way up. It's been quite a project."  
Lurid images floated across Santi's mind's eye of Chris working himself open, but still he asked, "Did it hurt at all?"  
Chris shook his head. "It will tomorrow, I'm sure. It's quite a stretch. But it's good." He wriggled again. "Feels good."  
Santi swallowed. Arousal was starting to edge out his concerns, and his cock was taking an interest. He'd had a thought, too, a suspicion as to why Chris might be acting quite so twitchy.  
"Have you come from it?"  
Chris grinned again. "Not for a few hours. It's been part of the ..." He took his arm out from under the cocooning blankets and made an up-and-down motion with his hands.  
Santi was watching closely enough to see the flicker of shadows in Chris' gaze and his sudden silence, broken only when his hand disappeared again.  
"The peaks and troughs of the whole experience." Chris directed a quick but acidic glare down the length of his body and set his jaw. "Look. I want you to look."  
He whipped the blankets away. Santi got a brief glimpse of Chris' dark, bare skin, enough to spot his erection and the shocking silvery gleam of the plug between his bent legs, before Chris yanked the blankets over himself again and shoved his head into the pillow, where his frustrated cursing was only slightly muffled.  
"It's all right, my love." Santi crouched down, leaning his forearms onto the mattress.  
"Fuck off. No, it isn't." Chris turned his head just enough to meet Santi's gaze with one eye. "I wanted you to look. More than look." His voice shook. "I was going to get up and surprise you when you came in. Or even just, fucking, change the sheets, they're all covered in lube. But - I -" He made a frustrated sound and pushed his face back into the pillow.  
It wasn't particularly unusual for Chris to not feel able to get out of bed, or even to unwind the protective shell of warm bedcovers without losing his sense of safety, and it didn't surprise Santi. It did make him bitterly sad, though, for Chris' mind to defeat such a hard-worked-at plan.  
"Can I get into bed? The blankets are yours." Chris nodded silently. Santi could see the sullen, miserable, self-hating lassitude starting to set in just from the way Chris' shoulders were as he lay there. Luckily, he might have a ready-made distraction, as it were. "Tell me about it, then." He shucked his trouser and settled next to Chris, spreading his legs a little more than was perhaps necessary.  
Chris shrugged. "A gradual increase in size. It's not exactly the sexiest ... oh." His grumbling faded away and his eyes widened as he saw Santi's erection. "Oh. It - oh?"  
He shifted to nuzzle his cheek against Nic's arm uncertainly, as if checking his solidity. Santi stroked Chris' damp cheek and neck, tidying away his hair a little, and gave himself a good squeeze.  
"Do you want to look at me instead?"  
"Mmhm." Chris shifted properly over now, resting against Nic. "I didn't ... I thought ..."  
It sounded like Chris' tongue was thickening up again, but rather than give in to his impulse to soothe, Santi merely pulled his half-hard erection free from his underwear and said, "You didn't think you'd turn me on, finding you all plugged and wet and ready to come?" Chris wriggled again, but said nothing. Santi thought of that plug inside him and his cock stiffened further. He stroked himself in silence for a little while.  
"I've not seen you get yourself off in ages." Chris' tone was accusatory but his voice was steady again.  
"I've been doing it in the shower," Santi admitted.  
Chris scoffed. "I know that. Your showers are so fucking short it's obvious when you take longer than usual. I'm not broken enough to think you've never had the urge. I just missed seeing it."  
Santi kept up a steady pace, then just as he was about to consider really speeding up, he noticed Chris shifting around. "Go on," he breathed. The very thought of Chris touching himself, of grinding down on the plug stuffed inside him, made pre-cum ooze down Santi's shaft.  
"Yes, but, don't look." Chris' voice fractured again halfway through and he hid his face in Santi's arms. "It feels like the blankets aren't there if you look." To Santi's dismay, he felt Chris begin to tremble.  
"The blankets are there," he said as firmly as he could. "I can't see a thing. You're all wrapped up." He leaned down and plucked a blanket from his side of the floor and spread it over Chris. "There. Extra." Not knowing what else to do, he returned to stroking himself. Even after that little hiccup, he was still quite close. If he was a little bit vicious he could definitely come in the next minute or so.  
He snuck a glance at Chris, and saw to his relief that he was still watching intently. His hands might be moving too, under the bedclothes, but Santi was trying not to see that.  
"Want me to come?" he asked.  
Chris gave him a wonderfully dry look, even though his facial expression was still tense and anxious. "Asking permission, Niccolo?"  
Ah, shit. Santi couldn't help but knock his head back against the headboard at that. He twisted his callused palm hard over the head of his cock.  
"Are you granting it, Christopher?" He let the peak of arousal come out in the bass of his voice.  
"For some reason, yes." Chris' voice was weak again but the words were right, and it didn't take long after that to snap the delicious tension and spill all over the bed.  
Santi waited, breathing harder than he needed to, until Chris let out a tiny, breathy sound and too, fell still underneath his mound of blankets. He looked utterly drained afterwards. Barely able to keep his eyes open.  
Cuddle time, Santi decided. He'd sort the foul bedlinen out later. So he lay down and gently touched Chris' hot cheek.  
"I love you," Santi said. "Do you want help taking the plug out?"  
"Ina min'te," Chris mumbled, in such a sleepy voice that Santi wasn't even certain he was responding to Santi's actual words. Still, he quieted the roil of concern in his belly and let Chris drift off. If he hadn't hurt himself yet, a little longer should be fine.


End file.
